Dr. Frank Conaty:

The other issue for younger people is that to get an assessment of need, they have to be referred on. Otherwise they have to pay privately.

With public service waiting lists, this is a key issue. Most young people are referred into CAMHS. While they have an ethnic identifier, they are not using it, or at least not reporting on it. One in three Roma do not have a GP and 50% do not have a medical card. Where they do, they do not have enough English to communicate on the phone to the GP. Some 61% of Roma in Ireland speak Romany, followed by Romanian, at 14.3% and Czech, at 10.4%.